Monster Melodies Records present the first release of Jacques Dudon's Erosion Distillée, a work of French psychedelic music recorded in 1969. Colored vinyl. Includes two postcards and a fold-out family tree of Jacques Dudon's bands from 1967-2010. Hand-numbered edition of 1000. Jacques Dudon is a French multi-instrumentalist born in 1951 in Villecresnes (a small town in the southeast of the Paris suburbs). At 17, he taught himself how to play guitar before creating The Soul Bag, an electric blues band. Under his Ghislain pseudonym , Dudon was considered one of the best French guitarists, with his particular style of playing the guitar on his knees. The band changed its name to Ghislain Blues Band, then Blues Bag, and went through a few drummers. In 1968, the band discovered LSD and the music turned to a strong psychedelic style: the band would play solos for 45 minutes, performing a "liquid show." The band recorded the Le Chien single (1970) for EMI under the L'Assemblée name (yielding two legendary tracks presented on many psychedelic compilations) before going their separate ways. In 1969, Jacques Dudon recorded some tracks alone for an album but the project collapsed and the music was never edited -- until now. After 1969, Jacques Dudon appeared at the Festival d'Amougies with the French band We Free and at the Biot Festival, playing after Frank Zappa. Dudon made crazy music with special amplified guitars to produce feedback, playing chords with different objects in glissandi (a process he was the first to use according to Daevid Allen). At the end of 1969, he joined Pre-Crium Delirium and went on the road with the Hog Farm for a trip to Kathmandu via Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan. They organized the first Kabul rock festival in 1970 and stayed in India until 1974. He returned to France and invented the process of photo-phonic synthesis, becoming a master of microtonal music. He continued to participate in many projects in the south of France, building a new instrument, the Dulcevina, with 22 notes by octave in accordance with the 22 Indian shrutis. In 1979, he played this instrument for a project called Dedicace. Alejandro Jodorowsky used the instrument for his movie Tusk (1980). Dudon later created a school for harmonic exploration, psychoacoustic music, and initiation to polyrhythmic vocal and organized music festivals.

Monster Melodies present Dies Irae featuring Dies Irae. A flagship group of the French progressive underground from the '70s, based on the French Riviera (Monaco). This record is the first record of this group to be released (not to be confused with the German namesake training krautrock record release on the Pilz label in 1971). It consists of tracks recorded on stage and in the studio from 1976 and 1978, when Dies Irae was at the top of its game. A record that will allow you to judge the qualities of this little-known group that claims its influences (including notorious groups of the era King Crimson, Van der Graaf Generator and Magma) nevertheless has a very personal and original touch which deserves to be included in the history of French rock. Gatefold sleeve. Transparent vinyl. Includes many inserts. Edition of 1000.

2015 release. Monster Melodies presents the self-titled album from Eclosion. A legendary recording in the history of Underground French Rock from 1972 released for the first time. Eclosion is a musical project by friends Leon Cobra (founder of the counter culture magazine Le Treponeme Bleu Pale), guitarist Bernard Stisi and Mark White (drummer and guitarist of Ame Son). Psychedelic entrancing music with an experimental, Indian influenced and noisy sound recorded in analog in early 1973 on a Revox tape recorder (the same used by Red Noise to record the sound effects of the album Sarcelles-Lochères in 1970 (FFL 004LP/LTD-LP)) with the help of a an echo chamber for a highly innovative outcome. But the trio ended up having different destinies. The project remained on a shelf, along with the planned design of the cover by illustrator Henri Aspic. 10 tracks specially selected and restored. Blue vinyl comes in a cover which folds open, with numerous illustrations. It also contains a separate illustration of a collage by Leon Cobra and an anniversary edition of the magazine Le Tréponème Bleu Pâle of 20 pages. Edition of 1000.

2013 release. Monster Melodies Records presents a reissue of Trixie Stapleton 291 - Se Taire Pour Une Femme Trop Bell by Fille Qui Mousse, originally recorded in 1971. The group was created from the culmination of a movement born after the Second World War, counter culture and the apparition of Lettrism, founded by Isidore Isou who wrote the book The Uprising Youth accompanied by Gabriel Pomerand, Maurice Lemaitre, Jean-Louis Brau, Guy Debord, Gil Wolman. The band consisting of Barbara Lowengreen (vocals), Bernard Gilson (guitar), Sylvie Péristéris (sound effects), Henri-Jean Enu (guitar, vocals), Denis Gheerbrandt (vocals), Daniel Hoffmann (guitar), Benjamin Legrand (piano, vocals), Dominique Lentin (percussion), Jean-Pierre Lentin (guitar, bass), Léo Sab (violin), François Guildon (guitar) recorded its only album in one day on July 8th, 1971. Fille Qui Mousse is on the list established by Steven Stapleton, John Fothergill and Heman Pathak of the 291 musicians who influenced the band Nurse With Wound. Comes as a red translucent vinyl comes in a sleeve which opens up, presenting unpublished photos of the group and containing two postcards reproducing the vintage concert posters and an insert with an unpublished text by Henri-Jean Enu. Edition of 500.

2014 release. Monster Melodies presents a collaboration with Moving Gelatine Plates with Moving Gelatine Plates. 45 years after the start of Moving Gelatine Plates, Monster Mélodies and the legendary band release an album of unreleased tracks recorded between 1970 and 1978. Comes as a translucent pink jelly colored vinyl. Comes in a sleeve which opens up, containing a flyer with a family tree illustration of the different components of the band, a post card of a vintage promotional poster rand a plus a record which is an identical reproduction of the one originally made in 1970.

2015 release. Monster Melodies present Live at Lons Le Saulnier, 1974 from Robert Wood & Woodlands. An exceptional recording, dating from September 1974, featuring a band that has never released an album up to now. Robert Wood, an English vibraphonist, guitarist and singer, is a veteran of the jazz scene, free jazz, jazz and experimental rock having played with Alan Silva, Don Cherry, Gong, Marc Bolan, Sam Gopal, Kent Carter, Bernard Vitet, Lard Free, Christian Vander, Fred Frith and Yannick Top. He spent the majority of his career in France. Woodlands was formed in 1973 with Olivier Didier (Herbe Rouge) on drums and Simon Wheatley on electric bass. Patrick Fontaine (Ame Son and Bananamoon Band) replaced Simon Wheatley a few months later and it is this second line-up that is featured on this album. In 1974, Robert Wood & Woodlands played more than forty concerts in France. The group's music is bursting with energy. Robert Wood plays his Deagan Electravibe and Premier Vibraphone in a manner which is both extremely personal and relentlessly perfectionist, producing a unique sound enveloped by the bass and the drums. Using a technique which includes as Robert himself explains: "My own choice of mallets, sticks, different types of pieces of wood, finger cymbals, the palms of my hands, the soft tips of my fingers and the harder attack of my finger nails. Each of these different types of attack engendered their own characteristic sound parameters which could naturally be played in a myriad of intermingling sound colors. I have always strived to open the range and flexibility of expression of the vibraphone as an instrument complete in itself and not simply an extension of the percussion family. I added a Cry Baby wah-wah from the '60s and a legendary amp, the Mike Matthews "Freedom Amp". The mutational frequencies of the wah to go even further into my 'improvisational madness' as certain people called it. On my Premier Vibraphone, I struck the key(s) at basically five different positions on each key, with a further four intermediate positions on each key which I would also strike for modelling the inherent harmonics. Applied to the Deagan Electravibe this technique literally exploded the conceived limitations of the vibraphone, and also created new soundscapes for my vocals, shooting us off into a cosmic voyage of time, sound and rhythm." - Extracts from an interview by Ron Kane.

Restocked. Monster Melodies present the original soundtrack of Amore (1973), a film by Henry Chapier, composed and performed by Vangelis Papathanassiou. An unreleased recording dating from July 1973. Vangelis Papathanassiou was the composer of the group Aphrodite's Child, he composed the band's music and the songs of Demis Roussos. Later Vangelis became famous for the soundtrack of the film Chariots of Fire (1981). In 1974, Henry Chapier after several atypical movie, An American Summer (1968), Sex-Power (1970) and Hi, Jerusalem (1972), directed the fiction film Amore. Here is an extract from the Divan d'Henry Chapier interview with Papathanassiou directed by Jean Claude Longin 2011: "This is happening in a city constantly threatened with death. At the time, I thought, there were a lot of documentaries and that I would do it differently. I imagined Venice in the guise of a heroine, a very beautiful woman, Sonia Petrovna, a girl of the Venetian aristocracy ailing, representing a page of history that has passed. But the fact remains that in the frame, in the subject, there was a little journalistic approach. Also because one of the actors, Daniel Quenaud, was presumed to be a reporter, sent to consider the merits of an architectural plan which would save Venice. So in the agreement, there is a slight journalist contamination. Otherwise there was also a love story... I think it's more of a fiction film than a documentary nonetheless." Chapier had this to say about going about the score: "The first time, it was at the Olympia, at the band's concert. I found the music to be trippy and wonderful, I, who above all, loved the Pink Floyd. I thought the Pink Floyd, I could never get them for my films. So I stormed in backstage at the Olympia, I said to Vangelis, 'Listen you are made to be an independent composer.' Things clicked between us instantly and so I asked if he wanted the script. He told me, 'no, we will see, me, I improvise from images.' This is a technique that is practiced today, but back then, it was unheard of. We did not have people like him, who recorded the sound on sixteen tracks, playing all the instruments themselves and who already had in mind how they would edit the soundtrack." Colored vinyl. Includes unpublished photos, the film poster and a postcard.

At the end of the sixties, Jean Pierre Weiller, a young Parisian and amateur bassist, was an assistant at a Soft Machine concert, and befriended Hugh Hopper who introduced him to Robert Wyatt. He was invited to the Abbey Road studios to attend the recording of Kevin Ayers's 1969 album Joy Of A Toy (MRSSS 513LP). Back in Paris, in October 1970, he decided to add a saxophonist to the band Brave New World, a band he set up at the age of seventeen with two other high school students of Paris's thirteenth arrondissement. Having become a quartet, the group took the name Contrepoint. Contrepoint, first formed by bassist Jean Pierre Weiller, organist Jean Pierre Carolfi, percussionist Mike Freitag, and saxophonist Robert Taylor, started to explore instrumental avant-garde music between rock and free jazz. Like so many bands at the time, Counterpoint performs in the circuit of the MJC and for various events. The members gained a certain notoriety, allowing them to be invited to the Pop Club of "France Inter" where they performed three singles: "Facelift", "Golden Section", and "Lily Kong" in the company of English musicians Elton Dean, Lol Coxhill, Hugh Hopper, and Laurie Allen. The group had a growing reputation and were in talks with CBS to release an album, but it was not like England. In France, the market for innovative music was not in line with the expectations from the French majors requesting maximum profitability. Contrepoint never recorded a studio album. Contrepoint did end up recording a live single, "Unfathomable Of The Seventh Time", on the initiative of Laurent Thibault, for Puissance 13 + 2 (1972), a compilation with other bands such as Catherine Ribeiro and Magma. In 1974, it was a new beginning. Counterpoint played in the first part of the new group by Hugh Hopper, which included Jean Pierre Weiller, Jean Pierre Carolfi, Elton Dean, and Mike Travis. A record from the band Hugh Hopper Monster immortalized on its second face the performance recorded in Bordeaux on March 20, 1974. But despite the recognition, after more than 200 concerts throughout France, Contrepoint separated in 1976. The unpublished record of Contrepoint, directed by Jean Yves Tonello in 1971, was originally engraved on acetate at the time and it remains one of the few existing testimonies of the work of these excellent musicians. Includes two inserts; Transparent vinyl; Edition of 1000 (numbered).

Monster Mélodies present the never before released album by Calcium. A legendary French psychedelic rock album, recorded in 1969, of which only two tracks were released at the time. Percussionist Stéphane Vilar played with pianist Jef Gilson and recorded on his 1964 album Oeil Vision (OI 012LP). Musician Graeme Allwright introduced Vilar to Marc'O, then director of the theater school of the American Center Boulevard Raspail. The director, looking for musicians to play rock n' roll in his project Les Idols, hired Vilar along with jazz pianist Patrick Greussay, saxophonist Didier Malherbe (Gong, Clearlight), and guitarist Didier Léon who features on the Barney Wilen's 1972 album Moshi (FFL 015LP). Stéphane then recruited jazz bassist Jacques Zins through Jérôme Savary. Les Idols is where the musicians who baptized The Rollsticks played. It was performed in 1966 and was later adapted for a feature film in 1968, where the same participants were joined by Valérie Lagrange. Stéphane Vilar then decided, together with his brother the painter Christophe, to create his own band which included some of the Rollsticks: Jacques Zins, Patrick Greussay, Didier Léon, drummer Alain Sirguy, and singer Danièle Ciarlet known as Zouzou. Model and muse of the Parisian night scene, Zouzou acted in Eric Rohmer's Afternoon Love (1972). Considered to be the French Marianne Faithfull, she released two 45 EPs orchestrated by Jacques Dutronc. She represents the image of the liberated woman in France in the sixties. The group took the name of Jardin, and soon changed it to Calcium. Thanks to financial support from Sylvina Boissonnas, the group bought instruments and practiced and refined the compositions for a year before recording. Two recording sessions were held at the Davout studios in 1969. Christophe was replaced by guitarist Denys Lable who later recorded on Jean Claude Vannier's L'enfant Assassin Des Mouches (FKR 001X-LP). After the recordings, Michel Taittinger, the heir of the namesake Champagne and television producer, obtained a contract with Pathé for the band. A single was put on the market without any promotion, resulting in poor sales. It's now considered to be one of the rarest singles of French psychedelic rock. Due to the disinterest of the record company, which only wanted put Zouzou's character forward to create a new Janis Joplin, the masters for the album were abandoned on a shelf for forty-eight years. Color vinyl; Includes two inserts; Edition of 1000 (numbered).

Monster Melodies present the legendary album Satan, an absolute must-have in terms of French progressive music, recorded in 1973 and never before released. In 1968, in Le Mans (a town in the west of France in Les pays de la Loire), some young students, planning to become teachers, started a band under the name The New Rainbow. Like many young musicians at the time, they enjoyed English blues and were fans of Pink Floyd, Soft Machine and Led Zeppelin. Quickly, they changed their name to Heaven Road and started to become famous west of France, playing live frequently. After playing covers, they wrote their own compositions and delivered a very good show at the same level of any professional band. In Paris, they won three contests in Le Golf Drouot (the mecca of the French rock at the time) and were declared the best non-professional French band of 1972. Playing at the festival, the band started to hang out with big names from the French rock scene, like Variations, Magma, Il Etait Une Fois, Catharsis, Ange and Dynastie Crisis. In 1973, they decided to be a professional band and change their name to Satan. They produced a unique music between hard rock and progressive and delivered intense shows, inspired by the world of sci-fi and literature, with musicians wearing make-up and strange costumes. But despite the fact that they played before the English band Caravan in 1974 and had an appearance in local TV show, the band always suffered from financial difficulties. For this reason, they created the more commercial band Ciel D'été with the intention of playing exclusively in the ballroom circuit. With the financial proceeds from Ciel D'été performances, they went to a studio in Angers twice - the first time to record two commercial tracks for Ciel D'été, and the second time to record tracks for the future album by Satan which had been performing for more than three years at that point. But at the time, they couldn't find a record company to publish their record. Satan collapsed in the middle of 1976, joining the cohort of musical project killed by the French musical industry - an industry which was preoccupied with making easy money by already successful English and American music and producing very dispensable French music, marketed commercially. Comes as colored vinyl; Includes a poster and inserts; Edition of 1000 (numbered).